Just a day after the horrific tsunami hit Japan, comedian and long-time spokesman for Aflac Insurance Gilbert Gottfried was tastelessly tweeting jokes to his personal account about the event. Gottfried didn’t tweet his comments as a representative of the insurance company, but Aflac fired him in order to deflect any association with the comedian’s comments.

This certainly isn’t the first time – or the last time – something like this will happen.

On March 9th, 2011, an employee from a web marketing firm hired by Chrysler to manage social media strategies posted an inappropriate tweet to the ChryslerAutos account cursing Detroit drivers for their incompetence on the roads. At the time, the Chrysler account had more than 8,000 followers, so although the tweet was deleted minutes after it was posted, the comment was re-tweeted over 100 times within three hours. The employee was fired and Chrysler issued an apology.

And in February 2011, an employee of the American Red Cross accidentally used the organization’s account to tweet about drinking. The Red Cross chose to handle the incident with its funny bone and, while the mistake gave the organization an awareness boost, it could have been very embarrassing.

It’s easy to point the finger at these faux pas, but the fact is that social media programs, like Twitter and Facebook, walk a very fine line between business tools and opinion platforms. Users are encouraged to keep things casual, fun and personal, and the buzzword is “share.” Yes, there’s professional networking going on, but there’s also gossip, journaling, and entertainment involved. Advertising Age author Bob Garfield has an interesting take on posting the truth in social media…even if it stings a little.

Do you participate in your company’s social media marketing? If so, how do you manage to be personal, conversational, truthful AND professional at all times?